20140601 Privatsphäre und Bewußtsein unter Bedrohung

01.06.2014 Privatsphäre und Bewußtsein unter Bedrohung

Privacy under attack

Romans had carried with them into slavery the culture of a free people, said Eben Moglen in an essay in the Guardian : their language and their conception of themselves as human beings presupposed freedom. And the power of that Roman empire rested in its leaders' control of communications.

That power eradicated human freedom. "Remember," said Cicero to Marcellus in exile, "wherever you are, you are equally within the power of the conqueror." The empire of the United States after the second world war also depended upon control of communications.

Furthermore the people develop a consciousness of self-censoring, as for example the New York Times allowed the 2004 election not to be informed by what it knew about the listening. Its decision to censor itself was, like all censorship and self-censorship, a mortal wound inflicted on democracy.

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